Zankyou no Terror Epilogue: We Remember That You Lived
by TheRoseShadow21
Summary: <html><head></head>Zankyou no Terror Epilogue fic. Rated t to be safe.</html>


**Zankyou no Terror is just the best candidate for an epilogue fic. So I wrote one. It's mostly Lisa POV with a few other different POVs too, and spans a few generations. I might write spin-offs for this- 'Some Secrets' could be counted as one already-depending on feedback I get for this. **

**Anyway, this fic is a bit long, but I didn't want to split it in half. I hope you like it anyway. **

It was hard to believe that just a few hours ago, they'd been having fun. Just a few hours ago, they'd had a chance to be kids again. Just a few hours ago, it felt as if they'd had a future.

And now…that was all gone. All of it.

And Lisa hadn't been able to do anything about it. It was only now, as the helicopters flew away, that her limbs melted and she ran to them, dropping to her knees and gathering Twelve close, hoping beyond hope that maybe this hadn't happened, that any moment now he'd open his bright eyes and look at her, smile and say that everything was alright.

But he didn't, of course he didn't. This was reality.

_But that happiness. That had been reality too._

She was vaguely aware of other sounds around her-the detective on the phone, the breeze, a vehicle arriving, but she didn't care about them. Instead, she looked for Nine, and reached out so that she was touching him too. It was strange, but she didn't want him to be alone. The sounds of his despair when Twelve went down still filled her head.

Lisa closed her eyes, and tried to recall the words of the music she had been listening to when the detective had come. Obviously, she didn't understand any of the words, but the music had spoken to her. And she needed it now. Where was the music player? Had she dropped it? She didn't want to go back and check-she wasn't about to leave the boys. She couldn't leave them. But now there were others around her, trying to pull her away, telling her things, asking her things, but she didn't understand any of it. She tried to tell them that Nine and Twelve still needed her, but her voice wouldn't work, couldn't work. Someone tried to ask her what her name was, but she couldn't even tell them that. All she knew was that she couldn't leave them.

"She's traumatised, in shock." She heard someone say, knowing they were talking about her. And then, she felt herself being lifted up, away from them.

"Woah, Woah!" she heard someone else say "It's fine, OK? Just breathe, ok? Breathe. You can ride the same ambulance as them."

It was in that moment that she realised that she was crying.

**…**

He had not expected there to be a girl.

Shibazaki felt like that in a way, he knew Sphinx well, through their riddles and bombs and the one time they'd made direct contact with him at Haneda Airport. He knew their past, and how that had motivated anything. A hostage did not figure into that, not one bit.

And yet, here she was.

Shibazaki studied her as they rode in the ambulance. Thankfully, they had managed to fix the most essential items of technology, and every effort was being made to save both members of Sphinx, even though it was futile. Given what he had learnt from Aoki Souta, those two boys should have died a long time ago. And yet they had survived until now. Leaving behind this girl.

_Protect her_, Sphinx Number two-no, Twelve- had said. A strange thing to say. When people took hostages, they didn't tend to care for their safety. And she had gone completely and utterly mad when the paramedics had tried to separate her from the two of them. She hadn't said a word, apart from that moment when Twelve had been shot (she had screamed his name as a simple, desperate syllable), but she had been hard to calm until eventually Kinoshita had picked her up and taken her to the ambulance. Now, Kinoshita and the others were riding separately, while he rode in the ambulance, observing the girl, trying to understand.

"I'm Detective Kenjirou Shibazaki. What's your name?" he asked her. She looked at him, blinked. Her gaze didn't seem blank-she was there, connected-but something was stopping her from interacting. From saying anything. She kept her hands in her lap, twisting the material of her mint green skirt. Perhaps he should try questions that she could shake or nod her head to.

"Are you hurt anywhere?" she stared for a moment, and then shrugged.

"Did they hurt you?" she shook her head. He paused at that, trying to think of what else he could ask.

"Are you hungry, thirsty?" she shook her head again. "You sure? We can get you something to eat once you've been checked out at the hospital."

The girl simply shook her head again, and turned to look at Twelve. Shibazaki watched as she lightly touched his hair, smoothing it down as she closed her eyes. A tender gesture. A complete contradiction to what he knew.

"Ok, let me tell you what's going to happen now." He found himself saying. The girl opened her eyes, and glanced at him, but she kept her focus on Twelve.

"We'll go to the hospital, get you checked out. "He told her "Then, we'll take you down to the police station, and we'll need to ask you a few questions. I made a promise to them to tell the world what had happened to them. You know about their pasts, am I right?"

Emotion flickered on the girl's face. Surprise. She nodded, once.

"Okay. It's all over now, you know. You don't need to be afraid anymore. You'll be safe. "

She stared at him as though he was utterly stupid. And maybe he was. Twelve had called her a hostage, but the way he'd smiled at the girl after saying it-the words had to have been a lie. So what was the truth?

The ambulance took a left turn, and he looked out of the window.

"We're almost there." He told her, somewhat randomly. She didn't say anything, just kept watch over the boys.

**…**

"Selective Mutism." The psychologist said as they watched the girl in the interrogation room. She sat there, looking all vulnerable. Shibazaki found himself thinking of what his daughter had been like, at a similar age. So very different. Then again, she'd never been through anything like this.

"Explain, please?" Kurahashi was irritated, and with good reason. After determining that she was physically fine, they had taken her to the police station, and tried to question her, to little effect. She had remained unfailingly silent. The only progress they had made was through using yes/no questions, but there was only so much they could find out like that. At least they had managed to get her name, by asking her to write it down-Lisa Mishima. Now, they had some people working on tracking down her family, and finding out if she was reported as missing or not. Anything that could help connect the dots, basically.

"Physically speaking, she can talk. But psychologically is another matter. She's basically repressed her ability to speak to others. No amount of force will help that."

"Will it impair her from communicating at all? " Hamura asked.

" could write things down, use sign language if she needed to. It's just the act of speaking. Either way, you'll need to work slowly with her. What happened to her anyway?"

Shibazaki looked at Lisa, and wondered what she was thinking.

"It's what we're trying to figure out." He told the psychologist, who nodded thoughtfully.

At that moment, Mukasa came into the viewing room holding a piece of paper.

"Erm…background on Lisa Mishima." He grimaced. "It's rather sad, actually."

Shibazaki snatched it before anyone else could react and read it, words and phrases standing out. Unstable. Single parent. Reported absent 10 days ago. Introverted, clumsy. Hospitalised.

"So, she's going to need somewhere to stay." Shibazaki stated flatly, handing the sheet to Kurahashi to read.

"No relatives?" he asked

"Not at all." Mukasa said.

"And she's too old to go in the care system…" the psychologist mused.

"Ideally, she should stay in our custody." Kurahashi said.

"She's not a prisoner!" Hamura protested.

"Perhaps she could stay with me?" Shibazaki suggested. "I know my wife misses having someone to take care of, now that Haruka is all grown up."

Everyone stared at him.

"What?" he asked, offended.

"N-nothing, Shibazaki-san." Mukasa said, trying to stifle a laugh.

He rolled his eyes.

"Okay, let's try again with Mishima-san." He said. "We'll need your help." He told the psychologist.

"Of course."

**…**

She had thought that she'd never talk again. In the first few weeks, everything was scary, and she could barely get her thoughts in order. Her mother had been hospitalised, and so she'd lived with Detective Shibazaki for a while. And despite his gruff looks, he was extraordinarily patient, and with some encouragement, she had managed to tell them most of what they wanted to know through writing.

For three months, she had spent most of her time at Shibazaki's apartment and the police station. Day after day, she sat in Archives, writing on pieces of paper, filling both sides with words. In between all this, she watched the news reports, and read the papers. She had expected her name to appear everywhere, but it hadn't. They knew about her existence, but that was it for the most part.

But in-between that, she had unexpected moments of bliss. Mukasa would ply her with sweets and show her stupid internet videos. She went on long walks with Shibazaki and Hamura, and Shibazaki's wife took her shopping for new clothes. Eventually, she got back Nine's music player, and she spent a lot of time listening to his Icelandic music. She even went back to Nine and Twelve's 'home-town' and set up planks for them, with their numbers, to accompany the other children.

She didn't remember the actual date she started talking again. Shibazaki had asked her how she was, and she had replied. That was it. Of course, words didn't instantly flow back, but she was able to tell them more, answer their questions.

But not everything.

She didn't tell them about what it felt like to have Twelve's arms around her, or what his eyes looked like when they reflected the moonlight. She didn't tell them how Nine looked more vulnerable without glasses, or that he was actually rather kind-hearted. She didn't tell them that Nine was good at ball games, and that Twelve had synaesthesia. She didn't tell them about the sounds of their laughter, the jokes they made, the way they walked. She didn't tell them that they were the best friends she'd ever had.

She didn't tell them how much she missed them.

But somehow, she got through each day. And eventually, she went back home and back to school. Where everything was different. When she had seen her mother, she had cried and promised to try and make things better. They moved house, to somewhere brighter, and they painted the walls together, in happy colours. For her bedroom, she chose pale yellow. It was a start, and after that, things slowly got better. They were both trying to be better people. At school, the girls who had tormented her flocked around her, wanting to get the low-down on the terrorists, but eventually left her alone when she didn't want to tell them anything. She found herself gradually talking to other people though, and made a few friends. Nobody like Nine and Twelve, but good enough.

And one day, when almost a year had passed, she looked in the mirror, and realised her hair had grown out. Her first instinct was to cut it. But then she paused. It didn't look too bad, her hair like this. Infact, it suited her. She decided to keep it like that. Twelve would have liked it, she was sure.

And when that thought didn't instantly hit her with a wave of despair from knowing he'd never see her looking like this, she knew that she was healing.

**…**

Shibazaki found himself curiously proud of Lisa Mishima, of the way she was regaining control of her life. Along with Hamura and Mukasa, he had attended her high-school graduation, and when she went out to celebrate her acceptance into university to study history, she invited them, too. And they often bumped into each other whenever they went to visit Nine and Twelve's graves. He wouldn't go so far as to say that she was like a second daughter, but he felt like they had a good rapport. It helped that when she'd started talking again, he was the one she'd first spoken to.

It had been said that every detective has a case they cannot let go of. Before this, it had been the one that had led to his demotion. Now, it was Sphinx and Lisa that he could not let go. Even though the case was solved, it had changed everyone, changed the world. It was a shame that they couldn't have lived to see it.

But perhaps, in a way, they did. Because people lived on in memories, and both Shibazaki and Lisa had memories of Sphinx. Radically different memories, sure, but memories all the same.

"You're softer around the edges." His wife commented one day as they ate lunch together.

"I am?"

"Well, your mind's still sharp, but you're definitely softer."

"I think Haruka would disagree with you there." He told her drily, thinking of how the visit he'd made to her yesterday had gone.

"Oh, you." She laughed. "In any case, your lunch break is nearly over. Perhaps you should make a move."

"Perhaps I will. See you later."

**…**

"Excuse me, are you lost?" The blue eyed woman looked at her curiously as she wandered around Reykjavík, taking everything in as she headed to her hotel. She had been taking lessons in Icelandic at her university, just as a hobby, and had continued them afterwards, even as she worked a job at an elementary-school library. And now, finally, she had decided to go to Iceland on holiday.

"No, I'm not. But thank you." She told the woman politely, smiling as she used the language she had worked so hard to learn. The woman looked at her, surprised.

"But aren't you a tourist?"

Lisa chuckled.

"I am, but I just wanted to experience this place on my own terms. And I made sure I learnt the language before coming here."

"Oh. That was rude of me, I'm sorry. Not many foreigners do that, you see. Not in my experience. Where do you come from? Oh, I forgot to introduce myself! I'm Marella Aaronsdóttir. "

"I'm Lisa Mishima. I come from Japan." She told Marella, finding herself liking the woman instantly.

"Ooh. Wow, that's far. What brings you here?"

Lisa hesitated, wondering what to say.

"A friend of mine loved music from Iceland. So I wanted to see the country that brought him happiness."

To her credit, Marella didn't probe further. Instead, she insisted on showing Lisa off to the rest of her family, and on the way there, made cheerful conversation.

Marella was 24-a year older than Lisa-and helped run the family sweetshop owned by her aunt and uncle, and was engaged to a lawyer. She had an older brother, an older sister and two younger sisters –with ages ranging from 31 to 15. She had lost count of her various cousins. They all lived within a couple of hour's distance of each other. One day, she'd want to travel the world, but didn't know where she wanted to begin. She was sure that her family would adore Lisa.

And sure enough, they did. A colourful, boisterous bunch, they accepted her instantly, peppering her with questions about Japan and showing her everything they could about their lives. They even took her sight-seeing, and eventually she decided to spend the rest of her holiday with them. She felt instantly accepted, and in return, she told them a little about her life. Especially about Nine, for it was his music that had led her there. She didn't mention that they had been terrorists. Just that they'd been her friends and that they had died.

On her second to last day of her trip, she was at Marella's older sister Daníela's house, playing with her children, when the youngest-5 year old Ylva- asked her a question.

"What was the first ever word you learnt?"

"In Icelandic, you mean?"

Ylva nodded hard, curly fringe obscuring her eyes.

"Hope." Lisa told her, recalling the memory.

"And how do you say it in Japanese?"

"_Kibou_." She said slowly, making sure the little girl could hear the syllables.

"_Ki…Kibou_." Ylva repeated. "_Kibou_?"

"Yup, that's right." Lisa smiled encouragingly.

"Yay! Now I learnt the same first word as you did!That's so cool! I'm going to tell Mama! _Mamaaaa_!" Ylva ran off into the kitchen, causing her sister Hera to come chasing after her.

Lisa blinked for a moment. Then, she smiled and ran after them, hoping they wouldn't have caused too much chaos in the kitchen.

**…**

Years went by, and she eventually established a routine. The school she worked at tended to break up for the summer holidays about two weeks after the anniversary of Nine and Twelve's deaths, so she would book her flights to Iceland around that time. Then, she would stay with Marella or one of her other family members, and spend the entire 3-4 weeks with them.

About 4 years after she had started doing this, Marella's grand-aunt died. She was there for the funeral, of course, but then she had the shock of finding out that Grand-Aunt Gunnhildur had left her house to Lisa. At first, she was inclined to refuse it –she was no blood member of the family, after all. But Marella and the others' insisted, and eventually she gave in, deciding to keep it as a second home for whenever she made the trip to Iceland. For the rest of that particular holiday, once the legal procedures were out of the way, the entire family chipped in to help her decorate it, inside and out. For obvious reasons, she insisted on the outside of the house being pale yellow, but took on the suggestions of the others for the inside of the house. The effect was lovely, if as loud as they were, and made her look even more forward to the trips in the future.

**…**

She didn't notice the two teenage girls whispering about her until she had almost collided into them. That day, it had been 17 years since everything had happened with Sphinx, and she was over _double _the age she had been back then. It was almost unbelievable, how much time had gone by. After work, she had gone to buy a dress for the wedding she'd be attending in Iceland that year- Marella's youngest sister Lisbeth was getting married to a games designer called Cesar Mikkelsson, and she was just as excited as everyone else in the family. Hence, she had been thinking about that rather than paying attention to her surroundings.

She took a look at the two girls. One had black-purple hair with a hime-cut fringe, and had deep grey eyes. The other girl had unusual eyes-each half of the iris a different shade of brown, and curly hair that was a darker brown. Both of them were wearing a school uniform she recognised all too well, for it was the same as the high school she had attended.

"Yes?" she asked. "Can I help with something?"

"You are Lisa Mishima, right?" the girl with the strange eyes asked.

"I am…how did you know that?"

"Sphinx." The girl said, simply. The hime-cut girl rolled her eyes, and muttered something about tact.

"Surely you weren't born then?" Lisa asked her, a little stunned. "Why do you want to know?"

The girl blinked, stunned, and Lisa made to leave when she called out.

"Wait!" Lisa paused, and waited to see what the girl had to say. "The thing is, when it was all on the news, my mother was pregnant with me, and both of my parents were fascinated by everything in the news. And when they found out that I'd be a girl, they connected that with you, and my mother would wonder how the world would be different by the time I was the age you were then. And my father, well, he's always found you the most interesting part of it all, and I think that's true. But there's not much to find out about you."

"For a reason." Lisa said mildly.

"I know, I know. But I'm not going to sell the story or anything like that. It'll stay between you and me. And Hoshiko. That's Hoshiko Itou, by the way. I'm Sanae Mitsuaki. "

"Pleased to meet you." Lisa thought about what Sanae had said.

"Okay." She eventually said. "Why don't you come to mine? I'll make tea."

"Yay!"

Lisa briefly considered asking how Sanae had managed to track her down, but decided not to. The girl seemed persistent, and it wasn't as if she was hiding or anything like that. Still, it would be interesting to find out what she wanted to know.

When she got in, she left the girls in the living room while she quickly put away her dress and threw together three cups of tea and a plate of biscuits. She brought it in on a tray, set it down on her coffee table, before sitting opposite them.

Sanae took that as a cue to get right in to her questioning.

"You were never kidnapped by them, were you?"

Lisa blinked. Sanae sighed.

"I'm sure of it. Based on the little information there is about you, you must have cared for them to some extent. "

Memories flashed in her head, and she paired them with what she knew had been reported. The girl was right, she thought.

"The general media consensus was Stockholm Syndrome." She said, warily.

"I don't believe that!" Sanae declared.

"Sanae…" Hoshiko said.

"What? If it's true, let her say so. Right, Mishima-san?"

"Actually, Mitsukai-san, you're right. I did care for them. I…I loved them, in fact."

Sanae nodded, hard.

"I reckoned it was something like that? Will you tell me about them? Not the terrorist things, but what they were like as people, that kind of thing?"

"You didn't know them." Lisa said, simply. She was overly protective of her memories. Over the years, small items that had belonged to them had been given to her: Nine's MP3 player, Twelve's green blazer and orange t-shirt, A small stuffed dog, a chain-link bracelet. But her memories were the most tangible thing, and she didn't want to give them up.

"But nobody does."

Lisa tried to think of how to explain it to Sanae. The girl seemed to have good intentions, and Lisa herself had come to terms with things…but she just couldn't.

"Perhaps we should just go, Sanae." Hoshiko muttered. "You've upset her."

"No, no! It's fine." Lisa tried to reassure them.

"They wanted to be remembered, right?" Sanae asked. Lisa nodded.

"So, tell it to us as it was a story. We didn't know them, but we can remember a story. They remain alive in your memories, right? So, let them be alive elsewhere. They've been remembered by the world, but only as terrorists. Not in the way you knew them. We can't come close to that, but we can try. Well, I will. Hoshiko's just here cos I dragged her here, although she _is_ interested. "

Wow. This girl was something else.

"And the memories, they'll die with me."

"Exactly!"

"Mishima-san, I apologise for Sanae." Hoshiko said. "She's like this to everyone."

Lisa smiled at that.

"It's good in a way." She told them "Better to not be so passive about things, better to explore and understand the world. And Mitsuaki-san, you're right. Nine, and Twelve, they told me about the other children who died, even though I never knew them, so maybe, just maybe I can tell you about them."

And after a deep breath, she did. And she went on, and on. She was surprised about how much she had to tell. She hadn't even told Marella and the others that much, although they knew a _lot_. She spoke until her voice went hoarse, at which point she noticed it was getting dark out. So she saw the girls off at the door, and they exchanged email addresses before leaving.

After they left, she found herself filled with a curious hope, and her lost friends felt more alive in her head than they had done for a while.

**…**

Although they had each other's email addresses, Sanae and Lisa didn't make much contact with each other, until the day Sanae's novel got published to rave reviews.

She was 21 at the time, and had been working on the idea for a few years. It revolved around the unlikely friendship between three children-two boys and a girl. She couldn't deny that these characters had been inspired by Lisa's stories, but the only other thing they had in common with her novel was that in the end, only the girl survived. When the novel got published, she sent a copy to Lisa, hoping she would like it. When Lisa got it, she was so touched by the dedication message (_for the 26 lost children: we remember that you lived_), that she arranged to meet up with Sanae a few days later. When that happened, they clicked in a way they hadn't the first time, and they became good friends, with a sort of big sister /little sister thing going on. Lisa would give Sanae feedback on whatever she was writing, and Sanae would take Lisa out on shopping trips and the like, just because she could.

As Sanae grew older, met a boy, got married and had children, she would often try to set Lisa up with someone. She found it hilarious, as her Icelandic friends often did the same, but she didn't seem to be able to find anyone who was just _right_. But this didn't bother Lisa. As far as she was concerned, she had many friends, a good job, and had managed to fix her relationship with her mother, so it didn't really matter. It didn't stop Sanae from trying though, and sometimes the result was quite funny.

And of course, they always went to visit Nine and Twelve's graves, especially in the summer. Infact, although technically the site was owned by the government, Lisa and Shibazaki were the caretakers of the place, so they both visited often, especially after Lisa retired. Shibazaki didn't retire-he didn't intend on doing so until he was dead or crippled. But both of them had decided to entrust the place to Sanae, who took on the privilege proudly, even going so far as to get permission to build a house nearby, so her family could take on the responsibility better.

To some, it might have seemed like they lived lives overshadowed by loss and a long ago terror. But that wasn't true. Sanae continued to be a best-selling author, Lisa had friends and interests outside of the boys-indeed, her Iceland holidays had taken on a life of their own, and though at the beginning it was influenced by Nine, it had become her interest in its own right-Nordic cultures were truly fascinating to her. So their lives were not overshadowed. And not by loss. No, to them, they lived lives defined by love, and by memory.

**…**

Miyoko and Inori were playing at being brave adventurers-as brave as their mother, who was a policewoman, was-so it made perfect sense for them to climb over the fence at the end of their back garden and run down the grassy path they found.

But then they came upon a strange sight.

They were in an area of land about the size of the school playground their father had pointed out while they were in the car, which was grassy in some places. There were some trees around, and what appeared to be half a building at one end, with one of the walls completely gone. Almost like a bike-shed.

And underneath this bike-shed thingy, were 26 planks, all driven into the ground and numbered. Even Inori, who was 5, could tell that the numbers went up to they weren't in order.

"What…what is this place?" Inori asked with her eyes wide.

"I don't know!" Miyoko snapped, although she was kind of scared too.

"It's a grave yard, silly." The girls jumped. They hadn't noticed the person sitting at the base of the sakura tree near the planks, reading a book.

"N-no it isn't! Those aren't gravestones!" Miyoko said in an attempt to be defiant. The other person –a girl-rolled her eyes and got up, and they could see that she was a bit older than them, wearing an old faded orange t-shirt with some English words they couldn't read on them with dark jean-shorts and pink flip-flops.

"It is. This is the place where the children lived, and died. Those are their grave-markers. See, those are their names."

"They were named for numbers?"

"Sure. They didn't have pa- you guys _do _have a Mama and Papa, right?" Miyoko and Inori nodded, suddenly distracted by the girl's eyes, which were half-dark and half-light.

"Anyway, like I said, these kids didn't have parents, so the people who were looking after them said that they weren't loved, and gave them numbers for names."

"That's so mean!" Inori looked outraged.

The girl nodded, and then she took a look at them.

"Where'd you two littlies appear from anyway?"

"I'm not little! I'm 7!" Miyoko protested, pointing the way she came.

"Whatever," The older girl said "You must be the family who's moving in. We live around the corner from you. Look, I'll show you."

She moved to a different part of the bike-shed, and opened a door in the back of it. Miyoko and Inori moved closer, and peered, to see a small pebbly strip of land with a fence at the other end.

"Open that gate, and that's where my back garden is. We own this place. My grandma's friend, who I used to call 'aunty', trusted my grandma to look after it after she died, and then when my grandma died, my dad took over. "

"Why?"

The girl walked back to the cherry blossom tree, and touched a plaque that was affixed to it.

"My aunty, she knew two of the children buried there. They were her friends, but they died, and she really loved them. So this place was very important to her. And those children, they wanted to be remembered, so then my aunty told my grandmother, and she told my dad, who told me…" the girl trailed off. "Do you want to know more about it?"

"Yes please!" the little girls chorused. The girl grinned.

"Okay. First, you need to know my name. I'm Yana Hanemura. I'm 11 years old. And I need to know your names."

"I'm Miyoko Aikami! That's my little sis Inori. She's 5." Miyoko told her. Yana smiled.

"Okay then." She sat down by the base of the cherry blossom tree, and patted the ground next to her, indicating that Inori and Miyoko should sit.

When they did, she took a deep breath, and then told them the story.


End file.
